In which I write down all those musings of which the world has been horribly deprived until this moment.
(Progressive Politics, Liberal Religion, Sex, and the occasional abnormality that bubbles forth from goodness knows where.)

Friday, December 19, 2008

Term of the Day: teratoma

A teratoma is a kind of tumor (neoplasm). Definitive diagnosis of a teratoma is based on its histology: a teratoma is a tumor with tissue or organ components resembling normal derivatives of all three germ layers. Rarely, not all three germ layers are identifiable. The tissues of a teratoma, although normal in themselves, may be quite different from surrounding tissues, and may be highly inappropriate, even grotesque: teratomas have been reported to contain hair, teeth, bone and very rarely more complex organs such as eyeball, torso, and hand.

Emphasis added. It's of course the latter type that get all the attention. This ABC news story might be about a teratoma:

A doctor in Colorado found a surprise when removing what he thought was a benign growth from a newborn's brain. Instead of a microscopic tumor, out popped a tiny foot, partially formed hand, a thigh and another partially formed foot.

"It would be a shock to even the most experienced pathologist cutting into a tumor to see this," Dr. Paul Grabb told the ABC affiliate KMGH.

Grabb said he could not tell whether the miniature limbs were from a benign stem cell tumor called a teratoma or the remnants of an identical twin that did not split off and survive, a condition called fetus in fetu [Wikipedia].

"It looked like the breach delivery of a baby, coming out of the brain," Grabb told The Associated Press. "To find a perfectly formed structure is extremely unique, unusual, borderline unheard of."

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